I posted this item to my Twitter, but it was too good to let languish there. It seems taking concubines is all the rage among China’s high-status men:
SHANGHAI – The saying “Behind every successful man, there is a woman” has a twist in China, where it seems that behind every corrupt male official, there is at least one concubine. A top anti-graft official recently acknowledged in public that 95% of the corrupt officials netted in Beijing’s crackdowns kept mistresses.
China’s millennia-old culture of men keeping concubines is back, with many communist party and government officials now keeping at least one “second wife” as a status symbol or to satisfy his sexual needs.
Keeping a mistress is nothing new, but the problem of Chinese women being hogged by a small number of alphas is exacerbated by the fact that China is the world’s largest kielbasa fest.
Some people have joked that the trend has made it even more difficult for non-officials to find a wife, given China’s imbalanced sex ratio. (According to the semi-governmental All-China Women’s Federation, the sex ratio among newborn babies in 2005 was 119 boys to 100 girls.)
The laws of sexual economics dictate that the sex that has the fewer numbers has the upper hand in the mating game. This explanation, however, doesn’t take into account the differing criteria by which men and women select mates. Because women are drawn to socially dominant men, a glut of males makes the alphas among them stand out and look better. In environments where males outnumber females by a sizable margin, the alpha males can win over women more easily. A paucity of women benefits both them and alphas, leaving betas with nothing.
The ancient Chinese tradition of men keeping concubines was attacked by the Communist Party when it came to power in the 1949 revolution. With its “iron fist”, the party under Chairman Mao Zedong also successfully weeded out other “social evils” such as prostitution and drugs. Bigamy is still outlawed today, at least on paper.
Mao was evil, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that dispossessed, sexless young men have always made great revolutionaries. Men who are unable to get any opportunity to reproduce have no reason to care about the welfare of their society. As the number of sexual losers in a society grows, the chance of said losers working to destroy said society in hopes of creating a new one where they are on top also grows. Because of the fluid nature of status in society and the human capacity for intelligence and innovation, “loser” men can topple the societies that wronged them quite easily. The role of mate-less men in fomenting many of the world’s revolutions has been largely ignored by the public, but is very real. Forget women; hell hath no fury like a beta scorned.
With the advent of economic modernization and capitalistic values in China, an undercurrent of sexual liberation and material decadence has also emerged, resulting in the return of concubines and an increase in extra-marital infidelity.
Chinese female infanticide and the idiotic One Child Policy created the problem. All the advent of capitalism did was catalyze it.
The current record holder in terms of number of mistresses is Xu Qiyao, the former director of Jiangsu province’s construction bureau whose death penalty over corruption was reprieved. Xu, who was in charge of infrastructure projects in the eastern Chinese province, had kept more than 140 mistresses. Anti-graft officials were astonished when they found Xu’s sex diary which recorded the names of all his mistresses and his sexual experiences with them.
Over 140 mistresses. That’s a lot of ladies to keep on the string. Remember, for every woman who serves as an alpha’s mistress, there’s a beta who comes home every night to a bottle of Jergens and Brazzers Volume 3.
China’s new concubine culture is not limited to government officials. The phenomenon has become widespread, with the so-called “concubine villages” springing up in coastal cities.
The average woman would rather have part of a winner than all of a loser.
Jin Weizhi, the general manager of a State-owned milk company who was convicted of bribery and embezzlement in 2000, once said: “Keeping mistresses is not only for physical needs. It’s more about a symbol of status. If you don’t have several women, people will look down upon you.”
Absent cultural institutions such as marriage, men who can’t get women are regarded as losers. Men who can get women are regarded as weirdos if they don’t swoop as many as they can. These facts are universal across countries and cultures.
The Southern Weekly quoted the wife of a high-ranking official in central China as saying that the residential compound for officials where she lived “like a widows’ village” because men seldom returned home. Many wives were aware of their husbands’ infidelity, but chose to keep silent over family interests.
A prerequisite of being married to an alpha is the willingness to tolerate his tomcatting. If you’re a woman and you can’t bear the thought of your husband banging other chicks on the side, marry a beta.
The resurgence in concubine culture led the Communist Party in 2007 to start a massive crackdown on officials keeping mistresses. The party conducted its first-ever survey on the marital status of government officials and its Beijing committee even ordered officials to report marriage changes to the authority. So far the measures have had little effect.
Trying to fight the human sex drive is like trying to shoot down an airplane with a slingshot and driveway gravel.
Earlier this month, the government of Meishan City in Sichuan Province banned “abnormal relationships” between officials and women. However, the ban was widely criticized for being impractical – the government did not specify what an “abnormal relationship” is or what penalties officials would face.
Defining extramarital relationships as “abnormal” is head-slappingly stupid, considering they are very normal.
Like most media in the world, the Chinese press laps up juicy stories about corrupt officials and their mistresses. Still, if the perpetrator remains in power, few dare to question his fidelity to his wife or his cleanliness from corruption. In the United States, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford – who almost lost his job for meeting his mistress – must be envious of his Chinese peers.
People instinctively side with alphas over betas. Not surprising. And the reason Sanford “almost lost his job” was because he was a moron who left the country without warning, and when he came back, he publicly flagellated himself for a week for doing what came naturally and waxed bathetic like a teenage girl about meeting his “soulmate” (a word no grown man should ever use).
This is the reason why China will not become the next superpower. A growing population of woman-less betas is a recipe for anarchy and chaos. I predict that the current regime in Beijing will be toppled sometime in the next fifty years. And when the government falls, the usual suspects among the pundit class will cheer it as a victory for democracy and freedom, claiming how the Chinese “yoof” wanted to breathe free or some nonsense, when in fact, all it was was a bunch of horny young guys who just wanted to get laid.
Short of killing off the excess betas in a massive war, China is screwed eight ways to Wednesday. Has The Mystery Method been translated into Chinese yet?
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“This is the reason why China will not become the next superpower. A growing population of woman-less betas is a recipe for anarchy and chaos… Short of killing off the excess betas in a massive war, China is screwed eight ways to Wednesday.”
This is assuming that the world does not become increasingly reliant on China becoming the economic bellwether. Should this crisis be prolonged or not, China, as being instrumental in the recovery, will be ensconced in a predominant position. The incipient revolutionaries could be bought off.
As I’ve said before in other venues, if you want to see our future, rent “Fight Club” (1999), with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.
This is the future in a world where cunt call all the shots: young single men bashing each others’ faces in, working at shit jobs (like Brad Pitt’s character–a waiter peeing in the soup at banquets where prestigious feminists give each other awards), and passing the few women available to them (like the Helena Bonham Carter character) around like joints.
If you don’t think so, consider the ending: buildings collapsing all around the city–as they did a mere two years later.
“Heaven and earth are not benevolent,
They treat the ten thousand things equally,
in the same way that the straw dogs are treated.
Neither is the sage benevolent,
treating every one equally
as if treating straw dogs”
Opinions differ on the meaning of “straw dogs.”
1. Recent scholarship suggests that the meaning is “straw, dogs.” I.e. people are not special for being human; they are just like plants and animals.
2. The old scholarship in English claims that “straw dogs” were ritual sacrifices of no inherent value.
I hope the application to sex in China is obvious, but I’ll be explicit to make sure.
China is a Confucian society that pays a lot of lip-service and propaganda to Confucian “benevolence” and “humanism.”
But the Chinese people have always been wise enough to see that Confucian benevolence is a very narrow part of reality.
The Dao De Jing also talks about big government:
“When the Great Dao (Way or Method) ceased to be observed, benevolence and righteousness came into vogue. (Then) appeared wisdom and shrewdness, and there ensued great hypocrisy. When harmony no longer prevailed throughout the six kinships, filial sons found their manifestation; when the states and clans fell into disorder, loyal ministers appeared.
If we could renounce our sageness and discard our wisdom, it would be better for the people a hundredfold. If we could renounce our benevolence and discard our righteousness, the people would again become filial and kindly. If we could renounce our artful contrivances and discard our (scheming for) gain, there would be no thieves nor robbers.”
“This is assuming that the world does not become increasingly reliant on China becoming the economic bellwether. Should this crisis be prolonged or not, China, as being instrumental in the recovery, will be ensconced in a predominant position. The incipient revolutionaries could be bought off.”
China will not be the economic bellwether. The wheels will soon be coming off of the Chinese economy:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/23/the_china_bubbles_coming_but_not_the_one_you_think
And even still, China is still a poor country. America has managed to keep its betas content with a steady diet of porn, video games, and anime conventions – the luxuries a rich nation can afford. It took the U.S. 70-80 years, from the Second Industrial Revolution to the end of World War II, to become the world’s preeminent economic power – and it was helped when the other industrial powers destroyed each other in the World Wars. The bread and circuses that the U.S. can afford today are the result of decades of economic prosperity.
China’s current economic revitalization began in the 1990′s, and they’re not likely to have the benefit of another world war wiping out their competitors. And this isn’t even taking into account the numbers problem – over a billion Chinese means that there are a lot more “incipient revolutionaries” to be placated. This combined with the out of whack sex ratio basically means that the Chinese will have to pull off an economic miracle to avoid catastrophe.
As I stated in the post, war is the most effective method by which societies can dispose of unwanted men. Nuclear weaponry and MAD make this an unfeasible option. The situation in China is hopeless.
“As I stated in the post, war is the most effective method by which societies can dispose of unwanted men. Nuclear weaponry and MAD make this an unfeasible option. The situation in China is hopeless.”
Not necessarily, considering the tactics employed by Islamic jihadists who may have successfully circumvented the dilemma of MAD. Girded by Western guilt and asymmetrical warfare, the jihadists have turned their campaign into a crusade of low-grade attrition where its targets never get the sense of being in protracted combat. Although you could argue that no single nation is conducting all these mujahideen in concert, it can be said that a society is. Besides, the Muslims had no notion of nation-states anterior to WWI and current borders in the Middle East have no bearing on the attitudes of those who seek to reestablish the ummah. China can likewise extend itself if worldwide economic stability is contingent upon the Chinese aggrandizing themselves further. These are impromptu impressions of mine as I have yet to read the article posted about the wheels coming off China’s economy.
An interesting analysis.
It is interesting that they tie the practice of multiple concubines to corruption. That is like saying all drug dealers in the USA owned cars, so the two are related. I suspect, from your story that most of the officials who have not been found corrupt also have concubines.
I also strongly doubt that one old man is keeping 170 young women satisfied. At most, he is paying their rent and dropping in for a back rub twice a year. A whole lot of betas are getting some on the side.
Ferdinand, you never did respond to my last comment in this post. Care to opine?
“Ferdinand, you never did respond to my last comment in this post. Care to opine?”
I was hoping you’d check back in after having read the article I posted, as it was crucial to my argument. But you asked, so here you go:
“Not necessarily, considering the tactics employed by Islamic jihadists who may have successfully circumvented the dilemma of MAD. Girded by Western guilt and asymmetrical warfare, the jihadists have turned their campaign into a crusade of low-grade attrition where its targets never get the sense of being in protracted combat. Although you could argue that no single nation is conducting all these mujahideen in concert, it can be said that a society is. Besides, the Muslims had no notion of nation-states anterior to WWI and current borders in the Middle East have no bearing on the attitudes of those who seek to reestablish the ummah. China can likewise extend itself if worldwide economic stability is contingent upon the Chinese aggrandizing themselves further.”
That’s true, but since the goal here is to bleed off excess young men to protect the Chinese government (Chinese society and culture will survive the coming upheaval, but the Communists will not), how could enough soldiers be killed in this type of war? We’ve come a long way from Vietnam’s high casualty rates – the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have killed barely 5,000 American military personnel combined. Additionally, what country could the Chinese invade that wouldn’t result in an international incident? Mongolia, maybe, but that wouldn’t possess much of a challenge for any army.
And the Chinese government can’t conduct a 4G war because governments by their nature cannot conduct 4G wars. The essence of 4GW is decentralization – no cities to capture, no visible heads of state to take down, no armies to defeat on the battlefield – and the centralized nature of government runs counter to this principle. In fact, some fellows on Spengler’s Forum (on which I used to lurk) came up with a theory called the “Milo Doctrine” that advocated allowing 4GW groups such as al-Qaida to take over unstable countries such as Pakistan as a means to defeating said groups, as once a insurgent group seizes control of a government, its leaders and organization moves out of the shadows and becomes visible to the world, and can be destroyed via conventional military means. Governments can foster 4G wars indirectly by acting as a third party to two unaffiliated factions that are fighting and supplying resources (such as how Iran is no doubt influencing the war in Iraq), but they cannot fight 4G wars directly. Basically, I don’t see any hope for Beijing in this scenario.
“Additionally, what country could the Chinese invade that wouldn’t result in an international incident? Mongolia, maybe, but that wouldn’t possess much of a challenge for any army.”
Even invading Mongolia would cause an international incident. Mongolia keeps very good diplomatic relations with the US for this reason.
China has two options if it wants to use war to bleed off excess men, both of which have their problems, Russia and India. Far Eastern Russia has a huge illegal immigration problem from China. Many Chinese have migrated from China to Siberia. China could use this as a pretext to invade Siberia. Also, China used to control the area around Vladivostok. This has problems in that Siberia is depopulating. Russians and other non-Chinese are moving west out of Siberia. This is in addition to how Russia is losing 750,000 people year. If the point is to bleed off excess men, then how will that work if there is hardly anyone to fight back in an invasion of Siberia. The stated point of such an invasion would have to do with Siberia so attacking Moscow or St. Petersburg would be a non-starter in addition to being generally pointless for the Chinese.
India could be a better option. China and India did fight a minor war 45 years ago. China also controls a tiny chunk of Kashmir. However, to really have a war with India, China would need to use Pakistan to cause it. This isn’t completely unreasonable as China has worked with Pakistan before. For instance, China is responsible for Pakistan having nuclear weapons. However, this requires Pakistan to act the right way for China to come in on the side of Pakistan. More importantly, it requires Pakistan to stay together long enough to execute this strategy. As we all know the government of Pakistan isn’t very stable and there is a good chance of Pakistan collapsing. A collapsed Pakistan takes away the pretext for a war with India.
The idea of alphas and betas is a bit limiting, there may be a case for gammas who are the real losers, but that’s another story…
“…there may be a case for gammas who are the real losers…”
There are “real losers” – they’re called omegas, not gammas. I don’t talk about them, and neither does anyone else, because no socioeconomic system on earth can help them.
Light gray font on white?
Brilliant!
Same thing effectively happens here too – Pareto’s Principle applied to mating. Where 20% (or even less) of the men get 80% (or even more) of the womyn.
See Wilt Chamberlain, for example…
Very interesting post!
Here’s something I wrote on China almost three years ago:
Chinese Arithmetic: The PRC’s “Bridal Shortage” Problem
Chinese Arithmetic: The PRC’s “Bridal Shortage” Problem
1:01 AM 01/20/2007 Sat
Some of you might have heard the news earlier this week, when the People’s Republic of China issued a government report which stated with great alarm, that by the year 2015, there will be a bridal shortage in China to the tune of 30 million. Or, put another way, there won’t be enough women in China to go around for the guys. This comes as a result – a direct result – of China’s “One Family, One Child” policy, which imposed abortions on any family who desired more than one child in order to control population growth. Because China is both a heavily agricultural society and one that highly values sons traditionally, millions of Chinese couples chose to have sons and aborted daughters upon learning that they were getting a girl via ultrasound testing. The Chinese government, trying hard to hold on to Communist power in the wake of the onslaught of Democracy and Free Markets, fears that this recent rurn of events could threaten the stability of the country, as millions of men have more and more trouble finding wives. Already, news reports of the better off of Chinese society, have begun saving large amounts of money, to serve as attractive dowries to prospective brides in the short years to come. This has created fierce competition among middle and upper middle class families, who of course want the best for their sons. And of course, this will leave out the even more millions of poor men in the hinterlands of China, now streaming into the teeming city centers like Shanghai and Beijing looking for work and a better life. As it hardly needs mentioning, the prospect of millions of horny – and angry – men unable to find wives isn’t a very pleasant one.
Astrologically, it’s so very easy to see, in the Chinese national horoscope:
People’s Republic of China Oct 1 1949 3.15PM CCT Peking (now Beijing); Placidus 5 Aqr 57, Campion. According to Nick Campion’s “Book of World Horoscopes”, the data above is based on the moment that Chairman Mao Tse Tung issued his first address to the nation on State Radio.
The chart reflects very well China’s Communist identity – note the extreme emphasis in Air Signs, with the triple conjunction of the Sun, Mercury and Neptune in Libra, and both the Asc and Moon in Aquarius, while Saturn is Peregrine in Virgo (Tyl) in the 7th, ruling the 12th (Political ideology running rampant, unrealistic outlook on the world, arch-discrimination, tight controls on societal norms and institutions). Mercury is Rx, with Mars conjunct Pluto in Leo in the 7th; AP=Saturn/Neptune, Saturn=Sun/Pluto (misguided public policy, rigid control of the Press, potential for brutality, violence, in the name of the State – recall Tianamen Square – Saturn/Neptune combos denotiong Communist/Socialist leanings. See Greene, “The Astrological Neptune”).
But the most interesting feature here is China’s 5th House, which in Mundane astrology represents the country’s birth rate as well as it’s national attitude, mood and approach toward children, birth and reproduction/sexual mores. Note the planet Uranus is placed in the 5th, in Cancer, the Sign ruled by the Moon, and is square the national Sun – in the 8th House of death. The astrologically astute will note that here in the USA, Roe v. Wade – the Supreme Court ruling that granted the right to abortion to any woman who wanted it for any reason whatsoever – came down the pike as Uranus was transiting Libra. To this day, Abortion remains a hotly debated political issue, and so is no surprise that it would be involved so intimately in the astrology of the Chinese state.
Note also that this same Uranus position is in Mutual Reception with the Moon, which sits on the Asc from the 12th House. The 12th House in Mundane applications, among other things, represents how a country proposes to deal with its problems, such as crime, illness and other real of perceived threats to the country’s stability (which is why the 12th House represents prisons, hospitals and the like). The Moon is the universal planet of the Mother, childbirth, the midwife, and children, especially infants. The Moon is also a female planet (daughters), and, on the Mundane level, represents the pulbic as a whole (and by extension, would have a grand say in “public policy”). The connection between the Moon and Uranus here, clearly shows China’s approach regarding “family planning” and the ultimate killing off of millions of girls in the womb. Note also Mercury, the ruler of the national 5th, again Rx, placed in the 8th, and conjunct Neptune.
Going back to my comments above regarding Uranus’ transit of Libra, you will note that it was during this time that it was square to the Chinese national Uranian placement, in the late 60s and early 70s – the time of China’s “Cultural Revolution”. Hmm.
It’s hard to see how women would get a fair shake in Chinese society, on the basis of its chart – again, the Moon is placed in the 12th House, and while trine the Sun, is also quindecile Pluto in the 7th (and again itself conjunct Mars). Now see, that Venus is in Scorpio in the 9th House and square the same Mars-Pluto conjunction in the 7th. Pluto rules the 9th – which represents any country’s “moral compass”. As noted earlier, women are forced by the State to get abortions, with many of them permanently injured or worse.
As we know, the Sexual Planets of Western astrology are Venus, Mars and Pluto, and in the Chinese chart all three are in aspect to each other, with the Sign Scorpio highlighted in the case of Venus. This accounts in my view for the fact that China remains the most populous nation in the world, exceeding well over a billion citizens. Saturn’s Peregrination in Virgo, represents the State’s “solution” in the “one child” policy, i.e., trying to restrict or limit the sexual mores of the public, or at least the outcomes of said sexual activity. But with the intense involvement of Uranus, those approaches would have drastic, if not disasterous, unintended consequences.
China made this announcement earlier this week as transit Uranus prepares to oppose the all-important Saturn position (the threat of Democracy challenging the Communist government position of authority) and as transit Saturn has recently squared the national MC (reality check); SA Mars=MC, SA Saturn=Moon/Pluto, SA Venus=Node – fitting astrological measurements! In the year 2015, the projected period ahead for the bridal shortage, transit Neptune will conjunct Saturn, while the Uranus-Pluto square will impact on Mercury and Neptune. Keep in mind, Mercury is the ruler of the 5th, while Saturn sits in the 7th – the Houses most associated with Sex, Childbirth and Marriage. In the short term, China is preparing for a period of deep reflection, a reckoning, of the ways in which it has chosen to govern itself, especially as it relates to the areas that have been the subject of this essay – Saturn moves into Virgo in Sep of 2007. The chickens will have come home to roost indeed.
The Chinese state of affairs regarding its “bridal shortage” serves as a sort of international cautionary tale about, what else, abortion – and the very real unintended consequences when the State tries to play God with the power of Life and Death. To be sure, there have always been ways, attempts and methods to in one way or another control or otherwise regulate sexual activity and the direct result of said activity, pregnancy and/or childbirth down through the ages around the world. And in our time of vastly improved medical science, this isn’t likely to stop anytime soon. But the Chinese situation begs us all to seriously consider the longrange ramifications of such broad sweeping measures, be they in the name of “family planning” or be they in the name of a “right to privacy”. As I’ve always said, Ideas have consequences, and if ever that was the case, it’s certainly true here, seen in the life, times and astrology of one of the most ideologically based countries the world has ever seen. Here in the West, we like to take a libertarian view of Sex, Children and Marriage, that it’s all a purely “personal” affair, one of but many lifestyle choices, that has little if any effect on the rest of us. Yet the Chinese example shows just how profound, and deeply impactful, these areas of life can be for all of us, whether we’re personally involved or not. True, no one here or in the West in general is forced to undergo abortion, and I would be the first one to stand up to say that I’m most thankful that I live in a Free Society. But you’d have to be either blind or intellectually dishonest to say that our governments in the West haven’t tried their hand in the “Love & Marriage” game either, be it in the form of Roe v Wade or the current Gay Marriage debate (and we have to note that there are at present, 5 countries who have legalized Gay Marriage outright) – with troubling results, to say the least. All accross Europe, birthrates are falling sharply, the direct results of policies instituted by the governments of those countries, to say nothing of the changes and endorsements in the attendant cultures (and we’ll be taking a look at this situation in due course). If the Bridal Shortage in China, born of a well-intentioned Neptunian dream of “balancing” (Libra Sun, etc.) its population growth, tells us anything, it’s that perhaps – just maybe – some things are better left to Mother Nature and time-honored Tradition to sort out.
Holla back
The Obsidian
considering their agricultural constraints it will probably be closer to 15 years instead of 50
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